One of the main characteristics of the methodology proposed by Santiago Resilient´s team in the development of the Santiago Resilience Strategy was the inclusion of several stakeholders from society such as academia, government, NGOs, private sector and professional associations, who advised in different parts of the process.
During the development of this document, six universities were invited to participate, contributing from their different areas of expertise associated with the Strategy Pillars, providing academic reports that were finally included in different chapters of the document.
However, given the characteristics of the Resilience Strategy, it was not possible to incorporate all the information provided in the academic reports in the final document. Given its value to the society, Resilient Santiago team decided to publish the material in a compilation format writting the book «Human and Resilient Santiago, a view from the Academy».
Claudio Orrego, Governor of the Metropolitan Region, said that the Academy provided an enormous amount of knowledge in each of the subjects and that it was necessary to leave it available to the citizens through this new document. Likewise, Pablo Allard, architect and Dean of the Faculty of Architecture and Art of Universidad del Desarrollo, highlighted the value of intersectoral work in the intention to make our city a more resilient Santiago.
Panels
The specialists in charge of each chapter of the book were invited to participate in two thematic panels, moderated by Santiago´s City Resilience Officer, Gabriela Elgueta. Juan Carlos Muñoz, Director of CEDEUS, talked about urban mobility and explained how the business district – that concentrates the largest number of jobs in Santiago – has shifted to the east and how it has resulted in longer journeys and more dependence on motorized modes of transport. On the other hand, Franz Vanderschueren, Director of Urban Security Center at Universidad Alberto Hurtado, highlighted the importance of the coproduction of security between different actors in order to achieve urban security.
Vesna Mandakovic, from the U. del Desarrollo, explained that a resilient city must create conditions to support entrepreneurship and innovation. In addition, she said that it is key to generate a link between the rural and urban world of our city. Finally, Camilo Arriagada, from U. de Chile, closed the first panel, commenting on the social debt that Santiago has on issues of inclusion since, according to the professional, it is the most segregated city in Chile.
The second panel of the event had three specialist in disaster risk management and climate change. Jorge Gironás, from CIGIDEN, discussed the water risks to which the Metropolitan Region (RM) is exposed, such as floods and landslides. «The most important thing is to change the paradigm in this matter,» said the professional. Jaime Campos, of PRS-CITRID, pointed out that although we are a clearly seismic country we have an absence of studies related to San Ramon´s fault. To which he added: «It is necessary to identify the critical infrastructure of the Metropolitan Region to advance to a more resilient Santiago.» The presentation of Sebastián Vicuña, from the Center for Global Change of U. Católica, was related to Climate Change and its consequences in our city expressed, for instance, in the lack of water resources within the region.
